


May Contain Dragons

by nostalgia



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Arthurian, F/M, merlin!doctor, morgaine the sunkiller, whouffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-11
Updated: 2013-05-11
Packaged: 2017-12-11 14:01:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/799529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nostalgia/pseuds/nostalgia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Clara visit the wrong universe and... well, what happens in the wrong universe, stays in the wrong universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May Contain Dragons

Clara reached the surface just before her breath ran out. She gulped in air and headed for the shoreline. She'd kicked off her shoes, but her clothes weighed her down. When the water became shallow enough she stood, gathering her strength before clambering out of the lake and collapsing by the waterline.

She looked round for the Doctor. Aliens couldn't drown, could they? He'd seemed relatively blasé about having to swim, but maybe that had been a show for her benefit. The surface of the lake was still and far too calm. Something must have happened, he should have been visible by now at the very least. 

She spotted two men on horseback heading for the lake and jumped up, waving her hands to attract attention. “Hey! Help!” She looked wildly around at the water, hoping they would arrive in time to save the Doctor somehow.

The men dismounted and ran towards her. 

“My friend's in the lake!” she shouted. “He's drowning!”

The two men looked at each other and one of them headed into the water. They were wearing what looked to Clara like medieval clothes, but any significance was lost on her in her panic about what had happened to the Doctor. 

The other man looked down at her. “You were in the lake?” he asked.

Clara stared up at him. “Of course I was!” A loud coughing behind her made her turn. The Doctor was wading ashore with the help of the other horseman. 

“They were swimming in the lake,” said the one nearest her.

“We were _drowning_ in the lake,” the Doctor corrected through gasps of air. Clara ran towards him to help, but before she could get far she was grabbed from behind and held in a firm grip. The Doctor's saviour pulled some rope from a bag on his horse and looked at them grimly.

“You know the penalty for swimming in the lake,” he said. 

“ _Drowning_ ,” the Doctor repeated. “And no, we don't.”

“You shouldn't even be on this land without the King's permission.”

The Doctor looked at Clara. “Can I say it? I've always wanted to say it.”

“What?” she asked. 

The Doctor smiled as the men started to tie him up. “Take me to your leader.”

 

The were led along behind the horses for about a mile before a castle appeared as they reached the top of a steep hill. Clara had seen castles, and they tended to look more purposeful than this thing. It was a bit fairytale, all told. 

“Are they going to burn us at the stake?” she asked, trying to remember what people did in the Middle Ages. 

The Doctor shook his head. “That's more early-modern, and we're not witches anyway.”

“They don't know that!”

“We're trespassers. Probably they'll just hang us.”

“Oh.”

He didn't seem very concerned about this possibility. “I'll explain the circumstances and I'm sure they'll understand.”

“Yeah,” said Clara, “tell this lot our time-machine crashed. There's no way that'll make us sound like witches.” One of the horsemen glanced back at them and Clara nudged the Doctor. “They keep looking at you. What's that about?”

“Probably just admiring the view. Some people think I'm quite handsome, you know.” 

Clara sighed and went back to her own thoughts. 

 

The stood, dripping, in a large room in the fairytale castle. They'd been untied, but only in the presence of lots of sharp objects held by stern-looking men. Clara rubbed her wrists and looked round at walls covered in tapestries and drapes. There was something off about this place. Maybe it was just that it was the olden days looking brand new, but it was annoying her at the back of her mind. 

Someone shoved her from behind and she moved towards the doorway in front of them. Well, at least she was going to see royalty before she got hanged. 

The new room held a large number of men and a few women. Most importantly it held a throne, with a red-haired, bearded man sitting on it. He didn't look like any king she knew offhand, but then history had never really been her subject until she'd met the Doctor and it had become a practical concern. 

The probable-King gazed wearily across the room as Clara and the Doctor were pushed down onto their knees in front of the throne. “Charges?” he asked in a bored-sounding voice. 

One of his men moved forwards. “Trespassing. Swimming in the lake, Your Majesty.”

“Which lake?” asked the King irritably.

“ _The_ lake, Your Majesty.”

This caught his attention. He looked at them properly for the first time. “Why would you do something like that?”

“We weren't swimming,” protested Clara. “We... sort of fell in.”

“We're very stupid,” said the Doctor. “We promise we won't do it again.” He seemed distracted by something, and if the Doctor was worried then Clara was worried as well. 

The King looked bored again. “This sort of thing can't be allowed. You violated the lake, the only appropriate punishment is-” 

Suddenly the Doctor was on his feet, pulling the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. “Do you know what this is?”

The obvious breach of protocol wasn't the only thing that grabbed the king's attention. He stared at the screwdriver with a mix of horror and hope. “Where did you get that?” he demanded. 

“It's part of my ship. My ship, by the way, is stuck on the bottom of your lake. I imagine you wouldn't be surprised if you saw it.” The Doctor glanced at Clara. “You've seen it before, haven't you, Arthur?”

Clara caught on. “No way. You're not telling me that's King Arthur.”

The Doctor shushed her with a look. “Blue box, bigger on the inside.”

“Is it really you?” he asked the Doctor. 

“I'm afraid so.” The Doctor didn't look very happy about any of this. He helped Clara to her feet. “This is Lady Clara, my... apprentice. Clara, this is Arthur, King of the Britons.”

“Merlin!” cried Arthur, standing from his throne. “You return!”

Clara pinched herself, but apparently this really was happening.

 

That was the thing about the Doctor. Just when you thought you had him mostly worked out something like this would happen and you'd be back at the start again. 

“How are you Merlin?” she asked as they were shown through the castle.

“It's complicated,” he said quietly. 

“How complicated?”

“It's... my future. Possibly.”

“Oh.” Clara turned the thought over in her head a few times. “Is that why you're upset?”

“Clara, for a Time Lord to know their own future... It's... it's obscene. If their past is my future then I have to be careful not to learn too much.” He looked at her severely. “So don't ask too many questions about me.”

“So how did you know about all this? If it hasn't happened yet?”

He sighed. “I met some of these people a long time ago. Which hasn't happened yet for them. I was young, I was scared, I didn't want to get caught in a paradox.”

“Hmm.” The light was fading outside. “How do we get the TARDIS back?”

“That's less of a problem than the fact that we're outside our own universe.”

“Excuse me?” He hadn't mentioned _that_ before. 

“There are holes, sometimes, in the vortex. Tears left over from the first moment of creation. Unhealed scars from wars you can't even begin to imagine. We fell through.”

“So... is there a hole around here somewhere? That we could go back through?”

“It could be microscopic,” he answered glumly. 

“It has to be big enough to fit the TARDIS through,” she said, reasonably.

“You don't understand. Time doesn't contain space, the TARDIS doesn't have a physical existence inside the vortex. There's no... sense of scale.”

Clara stopped and halted the Doctor by grabbing at his sleeve. “Doctor, please tell me you're not saying we're stuck here.”

“I'm sorry.” He turned and walked on, leaving Clara staring at his back with a rising horror.

 

“I can't sleep,” she said when he opened the door. She moved past him into the room, pulling the blanket tight around herself. It was bloody cold in the fake Middle Ages.

“Clara, I'll get you home. Somehow. I promise.”

“I don't think you can make that promise,” she said. “You're just saying that to stop me panicking.”

“Does it work?”

“Not really.” She looked round the room. “You were asleep?”

“It's Thursday,” he said by way of an answer. “They have Thursdays in this universe.”

Clara looked up at him. “Can I sleep here?”

“Um,” he said. “I don't think that would be appropriate. You're upset, you're not yourself, and -”

She managed not to laugh at him and said. “So very noble. But I do mean sleep.” She sat on the edge of the bed and yawned. “Look at me, do you really think I could manage anything else at this point?”

The Doctor relented. “Promise not to steal all the covers?”

Clara smiled and got into bed, drawing the sheets up around herself. The Doctor got in on the other side and turned to face her. 

“There are worse universes to be stuck in,” he told her. “Not that we have to stay here for the rest of our lives, obviously, but if we did then it's not so bad.”

“How much worse?”

“I don't want to give you nightmares, but there's at least one where they don't have toast.”

She resisted the urge to snuggle up against him. “That's awful.”

“First thing we do,” said the Doctor, turning onto his back, “is get the TARDIS out of the lake.”

“And then what?”

“I'm working on it. Don't worry.”

So she didn't.

 

Clara woke up with sunlight filling the room. The Doctor wasn't there, which seemed a bit rude. She rubbed her eyes and yawned. 

Then she realised that she wasn't alone. A young woman in a grey dress stared at her, then quickly averted her eyes and curtsied. “Lady Clara.”

Clara sat up, pulling the covers up as far as she could. “Nothing happened,” she said quickly.

The woman curtsied again. 

“Really, nothing happened. We just slept.”

Another curtsey, this one rather uncertain.

“Are you being discreetly silent?” she asked.

The young woman finally spoke again. “Merlin said to tell you he's gone out riding with the King. You're not to wander off, and you're not to complain about the dress he picked out for you.”

Clara swung her feet off the bed. “Yeah, that sounds like him.”

The servant-woman picked up a large heap of fabric and shook it out to reveal an overly-ornamented dress in a blue brocade.

“Do I have to wear a corset with that?” asked Clara. “That's not a complaint,” she added, “it's just a question.” She stood up and walked over to examine the dress. “Well, he got my size right,” she muttered. 

“After you're dressed, I'm to take you to meet some of the other ladies,” said the servant.

“Oh, good. Tapestry-time.” Clara sighed and let the woman help her into the ridiculous frock.

 

Within half an hour Clara was seriously considering starting some sort of sexual revolution just so she could stop pretending to be able to do embroidery. The ladies of the court were well-practised in the art, producing beautiful work while Clara fumbled with needle and thread to make... well, whatever it was. It was supposed to be a unicorn.

“Look,” she said, frustrated, “isn't there anything else I could be doing? Other than spinning, weaving, knitting, or anything else I might read about in a craft magazine?”

Her neighbour, Lady Aelfgifu, looked at her with a complete lack of comprehension. “Don't you like needlework?” she asked, as though Clara had just admitted to murdering kittens.

“I just don't see why the Doctor – I mean, Merlin – gets to go off exploring on a horse while I'm stuck in a cardboard dress sighing over knights I've never even heard of.” Clara had never really thought of herself as a feminist, but apparently she was one after all. 

Aelfgifu looked around nervously. “You shouldn't say things like that.”

“When's Boadicea? Has she happened yet? Don't you have any warrior-queens in well-fitted breastplates with a harem of sexy young men?” She didn't know much about history, but she did know what she liked. 

“We don't talk about... women like that,” said Aelfgifu, quietly. 

Clara stood up. “Where do the horses live? I want a horse and a sword and I want to slap the Doctor in his stupid face.”

Aelfgifu stood and led Clara to a corner of the room. The other ladies went back to their embroidery, no doubt bitching about the scandalous newcomer. Well, they could shove it up their -

“His women are all like this,” said one of them a bit too loudly.

“Well,” said someone else, “he's foreign, what can you expect?”

Aelfgifu took Clara's hand. “I'll take you to find Merlin,” she whispered, “but you mustn't tell anyone.”

Result. Clara followed her through the castle to the stables, and after a brief argument about the stupidity of riding side-saddle, they were on their way.

 

Clara started worrying about the situation when she realised that the horsemen in the distance didn't include the Doctor. She tried to stop the horse moving, but since she didn't know how to do that she didn't have much luck. They rode into the valley and Aelfgifu stopped the horses in front of the men. 

“Here,” said Aelfgifu, “tell the Queen I've brought her Merlin's woman.”

“The Queen?” Clara didn't like this at all. 

“The Sunkiller,” said her betrayer, “Morgaine.”

“I don't suppose one of those monarchs who open supermarkets and wave a lot?”

One of the men grabbed Clara and pulled her from her horse. “The Queen told us what to do. You can go back to Arthur's castle with news that she was captured.”

Aelfgifu nodded and turned her horse round to head back. 

“Whatever you have in mind,” said Clara trying to stay calm, “I don't think the Doctor's going to like it. He gets upset about things he doesn't like, and then other people get upset about what he does to them to make them stop.”

“Good,” said her captor. “The Queen would be terribly disappointed if he didn't do anything to save you.”

 

The Doctor had never bothered to teach her how to pick locks. This annoyed and distressed Clara immensely as she found herself chained to a rock near some sinister-looking caves. Classic damsel-in-distress, and if she got out of this alive they were _so_ going to a planet where the women were in charge next time.

The sun was setting when the Doctor arrived on a sweating horse. He jumped down next to her and examined the chains. 

“You could say 'Hello',” she suggested. “Or 'Don't worry, I'll have you out of here in no time'.” He looked at her and she saw how worried he was. “Why are you worried? What's going to happen?”

On cue something roared in one of the caves. Clara tugged on the chains, an act of complete futility. 

The Doctor pulled the sonic screwdriver from a pocket and started working on the locks. 

“Is that a dragon? Doctor, are there dragons here? Was that snotty cow going to feed me to a dragon?”

“Probably, apparently, and yes.” He grabbed her hand as the locks gave in, pulling her into a run. He stopped suddenly and Clara ran into his back. 

“Um,” he said, “where did the horse go?”

Something black and sizzling fell from the sky in front of them. 

“Please tell me that isn't the horse,” said Clara.

“Do you want the truth or a comforting lie?”

Clara tugged his hand and pulled him towards a crack in the rock. They squeezed into it as a huge red lizard-thing flew past overhead.

“I don't think it can get in here,” said the Doctor, “so we're safe. Unless it's fire-breathing, in which case we're in an oven.”

Clara punched him in the chest.

“Okay, not what you wanted to hear.” He patted his pockets as best he could in the cramped space. “Where did I put my screwdriver?”

“That's all you've got? A screwdriver against a dragon?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“I think you're supposed to get underneath it with a sword,” said Clara, remembering what she'd read in a children's book years ago.

Something heavy landed outside. They froze.

“That's the dragon,” the Doctor whispered. 

Clara peered out past him. The dragon was massive, with angry red scales and terrifyingly-sharp claws. 

“What do you know about dragons?” asked the Doctor. 

“Um... they sleep on piles of gold? They eat virgins?”

The Doctor looked at her with curiosity. “Are you -”

Clara slapped him. “I don't think it's a picky eater.”

“You're right,” said the Doctor, “there's no way it could possibly know something like that.”

“Start thinking, chin-boy.”

The Doctor looked out at the dragon. “There's no way it could be able to fly. And the fire-breathing doesn't make sense either. In which case... it must be held together by some sort of... I don't want to say magic, because there's no such thing.”

“Sufficiently-advanced technology,” Clara suggested.

“Thank you,” said the Doctor, sounding like he really meant it. He produced the sonic screwdriver from somewhere and started fumbling with the settings. “If I can find the right frequency...”

The dragon roared outside. 

“I'm sorry,” he mumbled as he worked.

“For what?” asked Clara.

“It's not you I'm apologising to.”

“You're not seriously saying sorry _to the dragon_?”

“Clara, look at it! It's magnificent. One of the most beautiful creatures I've ever seen. It shouldn't exist, yet there it is.”

“And if you don't hurry up it's going to eat us!”

The Doctor nodded and kept working. A low whine filled the cave, rising in pitch until it went silent, which Clara assumed meant it had passed the realm of human hearing. The Doctor looked pained. 

Then the dragon exploded.

Blood and bits of scaly flesh filled the air, splattering everything in sight with dead lizard.

They emerged from their nook, trying to avoid the bits of ex-dragon that littered the now-slippery ground. The Doctor's fists were clenched and his brow furrowed. Clara wasn't sure if he was angrier that someone had tried to have them eaten or that he'd been forced to kill the dragon. She suspected it was the latter.

“They said something about a Sunkiller,” said Clara to break the simmering silence. 

“Morgaine,” he said. “Arthur's... well, it's complicated.”

“How complicated?”

The Doctor turned to her. “We're not staying here any longer. I don't care what it takes, we're going home. I won't be dragged into someone else's war.”

He didn't say much else on the long walk back to Arthur's castle.

 

 

“Right,” he said, taking the most obvious chair in the empty throne room, “what do we know?”

“Are you supposed to sit there?” asked Clara. 

“Probably not, but I'm making a point.” He leaned forwards. “Tell me what we know.”

Clara started to pace as she thought. “We're in the wrong universe. We fell through a hole in... whatever the TARDIS flies in, we -”

“Stop right there.”

“What?”

“We _assumed_ we fell through a hole, neither of us knows for certain that it actually happened. Just because something else is impossible doesn't mean something else didn't happen.”

“Right,” said Clara, eager not to show her confusion on that one. “Well, we're in a universe with knights and dragons and King Arthur. And the TARDIS is stuck at the bottom of a lake.” She stopped and turned to the Doctor. “Is this really your future?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Another mystery then. Won't tell me your past, won't tell me your future,” she said bitterly.

“Isn't my present enough?” he asked, with just a hint of ice in his voice.

She folded her arms across her chest. “If I have to stay here with you, forever, I do think I deserve to know who you really are.”

The Doctor stood. “I'm Merlin. My father was a demon, I age backwards. I am the greatest magician who ever lived or ever will.” He stepped into her personal space. “And who are you, Clara?”

She glared at him. “Chopped liver, apparently. I thought I'd at least get to snog a few knights, but it's all embroidery and painting and I'm not wearing any knickers.”

The Doctor opened his mouth to say something and then closed it again. He blinked at her, looked her up and down. “You... you... what?”

“Knickers,” she enunciated. “They haven't been invented yet.”

The Doctor went red.

“What, over a thousand years old and you can't cope with a simple fact about my lack of underwear?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Down, boy.”

“Stop trying to change the subject.”

“If you can't concentrate don't go blaming me.”

The Doctor stepped back and spread his arms. “Humans,” he said. “You never know when to let things go, do you? Everything has to be... tense. You always have to have your own way.”

Clara wasn't going to let him win. “So if it's all just me I suppose that means you've started keeping the sonic screwdriver down the front of your trousers.” She realised she felt hot. “Can we get back to trying to get away from here?” 

“Good idea.”

“We know where we are,” she said, relieved, “and that's about it.”

“Arthur and Morgaine are going to war,” the Doctor told her. “Or at least Arthur is. I tried to talk him out of it this morning, but then... dragon issues.”

“I'm not getting stuck in a game of Medieval Total War,” said Clara. 

“Don't worry, I'll think of something. I always think of something.”

 

The thought of never leaving stuck with her. She wasn't supposed to get stuck somewhere, she was supposed to go off on cool space-dates every Wednesday. Never going home wasn't an option. Sighing heavily, she gave up on trying to sleep and crept out of her room towards the Doctor's.

The Doctor opened the door and waved her in. 

“I have a confession to make,” he said.

“Okay,” she said, trying to sound casual.

He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I'm more worried than I let on. I can't hear the TARDIS.”

“Oh. Is that.. that's bad, isn't it?”

“Very.”

Clara sat down next to him. “You've never let me down.”

He looked at her carefully. “If I had, would you still trust me?”

“I'm not sure if I know how not to.” She took his hand in hers. 

“Do you know what happens to Merlin, in the end?” he asked, absently stroking the back of her hand with his thumb.

Clara shook her head.

“He falls in love with a woman who demands to know his secrets and then uses his powers against him.”

“Then don't fall in love with anyone,” she said. “It's easy, think of all the people you've met that you haven't fallen in love with.”

“Good advice,” he said with a quiet laugh. He leaned in and kissed her on her forehead.

On some impulse, Clara moved, tipping her head until his lips were on hers. It was so easy. She kissed him, and he kissed her, and it was going really well until he moved away and said, “Sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” she asked, still holding his hand.

“I'm not sure. Everything, I suppose.” 

“I'm not after all your secrets,” she told him. “I just get curious. You can't blame me for that.”

“No, I can't,” he said, and kissed her again.

 

 

This time the Doctor was still there when she woke up, lying on his back and snoring gently. Clara's immediate instinct was to run, but she knew she'd have to face the consequences eventually. He was her ticket home, she couldn't afford to upset him. 

Still, she wanted to be the one with an advantage of some sort. She carefully slipped from the bed and started picking her clothes off the floor, dressing as she went along. These clothes were stupidly difficult to put on without help, but she managed it in the end and felt quite proud of herself. Now she had armour. 

She still didn't know his name, but it sort of didn't matter. He had a certain vulnerability that she hadn't noticed before. He wasn't scared of the monsters, but Clara was pretty sure that he was scared of her instead. 

When the grey servant knocked on the door Clara opened it and said, “Yes, we did, and it was really good. Now piss off.” She closed the door again and planned her next move.

When the Doctor finally woke he sat up and stared at her for a while before saying, “Right, first things first. We need to get the TARDIS out of that lake.”

All business. Well, two could play at that game. “I've been thinking,” she said. “About the lake. In the stories it's supposed to be some sort of magic lake. Maybe we didn't just land there by accident.”

“A weak point between the universes,” he pondered, picking up his trousers and pulling them on under the covers. 

“Maybe we didn't fall, maybe we were pulled,” she went on.

“Plucked from the vortex like an apple from a tree.” He buttoned his shirt quickly. “I think you might be onto something.”

“So we have to ask who wants us here, and why.” Clara felt quite proud of herself thus far. She liked showing him how clever she was, and she liked the way he kept taking quick, almost nervous, glances at her. 

Yeah, she was winning.

 

The Doctor threw the doors open and strode into the throne room. “Which of you did this? Who brought us here?”

Arthur stood. “This is your destiny, Merlin, you can't escape it.”

The Doctor walked up to the king and poked him in the chest. “You dragged us out of the vortex, you may have _killed_ my TARDIS, you let Clara get abducted from your castle... this isn't a good time to talk about the future, because you may not have one.”

Arthur didn't flinch. “I have to defeat Morgaine. I need your help.”

“You brought me here because you're scared of me,” said the Doctor. “That's good, because it means I won't have to make threats.”

“We're going home,” said Clara, not wanting to be left out. “You reverse whatever you did and you let us leave. Or else,” she added, because it seemed like _someone_ should be making direct threats.

 

Clara sat on the floor of the console room watching the Doctor doing some repairs. She was pretty sure that he didn't have to stroke the components as much as he did, but it was keeping him happy at least.

“Are we going to talk about it?” she asked after some time.

The Doctor didn't look up. “It's not my future and I'm not going to think about it.”

“I'm talking about the present.”

“Oh, you mean... the..”

“The sex,” she clarified.

He looked up at her at last. “It was very nice,” he ventured. 

“But what happens outside the universe stays outside the universe,” she said.

“Yes,” he said with obvious relief. “For all sorts of reasons.”

“I'm not looking for a relationship right now,” she told him. “And certainly not with an alien.”

“What's wrong with aliens?” he asked, offended.

“They're just not my type.”

“What, all of them? All aliens are not your type?”

“Doctor,” she warned, “if you keep talking we're going to have to discuss feelings and emotions and what we mean to each other.”

“Ah. Good point.”

Clara stood and patted the TARDIS console. “Don't worry,” she said, “he's all yours.”


End file.
